


the rose-fingered moon

by lustfulpasiphae (miraphora)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6497107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraphora/pseuds/lustfulpasiphae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An interlude during Josephine's brief misspent youth as a bard in Val Royeaux.  The young Nightingale engages in a gentle seduction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the rose-fingered moon

**Author's Note:**

> From a tumblr prompt: 
> 
> @miraamell said: “Okay, so I have no idea if this is a good idea or not… but either misusing The Lover’s Alcove in Val Royeaux, and because my brain has somehow went to buying a fancy Orleasian toy and unable to wait to use it.”
> 
> AND I SAID: “HOW ABOUT BOTH” because i am trash. But then, I LIED ABOUT THE SMUT.

Leliana had a way of responding to questioning looks that was cool and unflappable. Josephine had never had problems handling indelicate nobles or fractious dignitaries, but the other bard put her to shame when it came to the knowing eyes of shopkeepers. 

 _Other bard_. Blessed Andraste, her parents were going to murder her. Josie still hadn’t grown accustomed to her new vocation.

A slim pale hand alighted like a dove on her silk-sheathed arm, tightening with the faintest reassuring pressure, and Josie returned to the moment with an imperceptible shake of her head, casting doubt and other thoughts and the light grip aside. Tonight was for fun and mischief–-not second-guessing. She wandered away, attention idling on impeccably-dusted shelves.

The candlelight in the shop glinted subtly on the soft gold powder dusted around Leliana’s blue eyes, bringing out hazel lights and softening her gaze. Purchase concluded, the redhead inclined her head with a faint flourish, and joined Josie near the door. It had grown dark while they lingered over elaborate toys and contraptions, polished and well-oiled and displayed for all the proclivities of the Val Royeaux nobility and their hangers-on. 

“Come, my friend, we must deliver your package to Madame Pamplemousse, or she will be very cross. Her latest paramour is a terrible hassle.” Leliana winked at her very faintly, and her mouth relaxed with gratitude at the small deception–-especially when the shopkeeper gave them an understanding look and relaxed. 

One would think in a town filled with such practiced anonymity and affected licentiousness that the thought of two women purchasing _aides de amour_ would go unremarked, and yet–-Josephine was starkly aware of the dusky bronze of her skin against the sleek alabaster of Leliana’s lean form. Orlais was not Antiva-–nor even the rough and tumble melting pot of the Marches. There were attitudes here she had not expected when her parents sent her south to cultivate family connections.

“Thank you-–I do not think I could stand another moment of his filthy looks,” Josie murmured as soon as they were well clear of the doorway and deep into the rousing streets of the red light district.

Leliana shrugged off her gratitude casually, her keen glance perusing the shadows and the passing masked faces as they worked their way through the crowds. “Think nothing of it.” She cast a quick, sly glance at Josie and patted the discreet lines of her coinpurse–-carefully tucked beneath her tunic. “Two birds, one stone.”

Josie opened her mouth, and shut it again, quickly, exasperated. “A client, this Madame?”

Leliana twinkled at her wickedly. “ _Non_. But a rival of hers…Oh, do not look at me so, _ma tendre colombe_. You know that all of my intrigues have a dual purpose!”

“At the **very** least,” Josie rejoined with some asperity.

The other bard tossed her a careless smile and took her hand, squeezing gently and tugging her along through the crowds. “Come, we have mischief to make!”

“Do we?” Josephine allowed herself to be led, her slippered feet finding scant purchase on glazed tiles as they made their way from the cobbled streets of the red light district to a quiet venue where one of the many ornamental garden squares that littered the city sat in quiet and starlit contemplation. The first of the moons had begun to rise-–it would be hours yet before the second joined its sister in the sky and lent its light.

Leliana reeled her in close, and Josie shivered at the press of their bodies, and the way her friend-–her lover? Blessed Andraste–-breathed soft and quick against the heated skin of her throat before bestowing a quick kiss and darting back again.

“Stay here a moment,” Leliana breathed, before disappearing. 

Josie directed a questioning gaze toward the faint emerald hues of the moon, seeking guidance or counsel and finding only enigmatic distance–-but no censure. The moons knew her secrets and kept them as flesh and blood would not. 

Soon, Leliana returned, her hood up around her head, shrouding her face twice-hidden in mask and shadow. A pale hand clasped hers, squeezing--Leliana was frequently using touch to gentle her, as if she sensed that the soothing croon of her angelic voice was not enough to settle ragged nerves and jolting uncertainty. 

“Follow me,” the slim redhead breathed softly, keeping a steady touch on her wrist. 

Josephine cast a glance at the cool green moon and followed into the encroaching shadows, feeling concealed and ensconced. She recognized the shadows and alcoves on the other end of the square-–she had sent clandestine lovers here before, as part of the gentler intrigues of her new vocation. 

The Lovers’ Alcove.

Her footsteps hesitated, and Leliana felt it, casting a searching glance back over her shoulder before doubling her insistent pressure. Josie let herself be led into the shadows, but her steps were cautious, and silent. This was a gathering place for star-crossed and misguided lovers, not–-

Blessed Andraste, not for bards and the daughters of foreign merchants playing at being bards. 

The redhead’s hand was warm on her arm, even through kidskin and silk-–Leliana spun with a soft sound of pleasure in the quiet darkness of the Alcove, and delicately seized the placards of her doublet. Josie paused, carefully, her grey eyes darting side to side. Leliana chortled softly, her silky red hair thrown back. 

“You worry too much, my sweet. _Ma douce caramel_ ,” she crooned, voice pure and clear like an angel.

Josephine pulled away, her full lips firmed. “I am not food, or a tasty snack.” She was gentle and forgiving in many things, but exotic affectations she would not countenance. She would be an equal or nothing at all.

Leliana pulled back, her eyes glinting with a flare of reflected starlight but naught else. “I would never presume–-”

Josephine pressed a finger to those soft lips, that so sweetly sang as easily as they lied. “Don’t. Secrets, yes. Lies, no.” She didn’t need to explain. They both understood-–this was a realm where diplomacy and bardery differed not at all.

Sleek ginger brows quirked, and soft lips pursed, and Leliana dragged her into the shadows of a column. “That is well enough, _ma tendre colombe_ , but the shadows have their own cost.” Warm breath puffed against her throat, before soft lips sealed in an intimate caress. 

Josie shivered, and tried not to push Leliana away. The bard’s mouth was tender, exploratory, teasing, and sent a shiver thrumming through her from head to toe. Josie’s eyes fell shut as a taut breath escaped her lips–-Leliana’s deft hands made short work of her sash, and slipped within a gaping fold of her doublet to caress her through the thin muslin and lace of her shift. For all her cool composure, Leliana’s touch was like a firebrand to the dry tinder of Josie’s nerves. The bard set her alight with little effort.

Leliana’s mouth seized hers, closing with a gentle bite against Josie’s full lower lip. Sensation drowned Josie, the clarity of the moon obscured by the shadows of the alcove-–Leliana’s delicate rosewater scent curled around her, befuddled her. Leliana’s voice, sweet and lyric and trained to enchantment, breathed a fervent paean against the long lines of her throat and against her parted lips-–

“She shines among the masked women like the rose-fingered moon rising after sundown, erasing all stars around her-–”

Josie was partial to the Poetess of the Waking Sea, as Leliana well knew. A breathy moan escaped her kiss-swollen lips, and she tangled her fingers into the silken fall of the bard’s hair. Leliana chuckled faintly and nuzzled tenderly at her earlobe, whispering decadent, filthy secrets, language that made Josie’s body languid with desire. She nearly forgot the exposed columns that surrounded them, the deep shadows that concealed them from chance observation–-nearly forgot the world beyond the alcove.

But when slim fingers touched silken skin, stealing beneath the muslin of her shift to stroke the swell of her generous hip, Josie came back to herself with a jolt of awareness. Blessed Andraste. The Lover’s Alcove. 

Leliana pulled away when she stiffened-–her face shrouded in the shadow of a column, shoulders lit by a moonbeam. Josie took a deep, shuddering breath, hands smoothing and settling her doublet, rescuing the dragging ends of her sash to secure the gaping fabric. 

“Too much?”

The bard’s voice was cool again, as though her lips had not been sampling a banquet of warm, silken skin and contemplating a more satisfying meal. Josie took pause, stricken with a moment of regret. Leliana sometimes made her nervous, cautious, wary-–but the other woman had tender and vulnerable depths that could surface in quicksilver glints. 

Josie reached out, catching a slim hand and squeezing warmly. She let her voice sink in a graceful hum of reassurance. “No-–but might we find a softer bower for our pleasures?”

The bard’s hands stroked hers, before slipping away. “Perhaps you are right. There is a lingering atmosphere of failed liaisons and cheap pomade here.” That angelic voice knew the value of an injection of dry humor to rescue a mood. 

Josie smiled in the shadows, dipped her head close to take a kiss of her own–-ephemeral, but promising future dividends. “And I have a mind for you to instruct me in the pleasures of your newly-purchased instrument,” she suggested, voice sinking into a gliding register usually reserved for the bedchamber.

Leliana chuckled throatily at this peace offering, touching her cheek with glancing fondness. “You are a consummate diplomat, _ma tendre colombe_. Come, then. There are cushions and all the softest comforts awaiting my lady. *I* have a mind to see you spread out like a sumptuous feast,” she purred. 

Josie swallowed back a tide of longing and heat and the quickening uncertainty that her own impulses roused. They slipped through the shadows together, silently, and a rosey moon hung in the sky with her verdant lover, keeping the secrets of their passing and the trembling hands of one silver-eyed woman. 


End file.
